In recent years, certain industries have dramatically increased the amount of grain necessary to meet their operations. For example, ethanol plants utilize a large amount of grain and have grain distribution systems which often handle a higher grain throughput than does a typical grain storage elevator. It also has become increasingly important for such business to remain efficient in their operations and to minimize the duration of any downtime.
In the past, grain handling equipment manufacturers have sold ceramic-lined spouts, elbows, and even “Y” valve ceramic-lined directional flow diverters for applications that have very high flow rates. These ceramic-lined systems typically involve gluing or otherwise adhering ceramic tiles to the inside surface of spouts, valves, and diverters, etc. The ceramics tiles are well known to handle abrasion better than grain handling apparatus with a metal-to-grain contact surface. While these ceramic-lined spouts, elbows, and diverters, etc. have enjoyed much success and have been used extensively in the past, they do have some drawbacks.
First of all, often non-grain debris which is harder and heavier than grain becomes mixed with the grain; e.g., rocks, metal pieces, screws, nuts, bolts, etc. can find their way into the grain. When this happens, damage to the tiles can be substantial. Impact of a large enough object at a high enough velocity can result in breaking off parts of the ceramic tiles, which may cause still more damage further down the material flow path. It has also been proposed to use a ceramic tile itself as a diverter in a material flow path. In such cases, it is possible for the ceramic tile to break and/or become displaced from its working arrangements, resulting in rapid changes with substantial leakage of material into unwanted pathways.
Consequently, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for providing, maintaining, repairing and replacing equipment for diverting dry bulk material in an efficient manner.